Plumbing – How to fix outdoor faucet drip when indoor shut off is off

You say you replaced the seats. The seat is where the usually rubber washer on the end of the stem seals against the back of the valve body. If you put your finger in the hole where the stem goes you should be able to feel the surface where sealing takes place. This surface can get scratched and allow leaks. In fact, the leak can make the scratch worse over time. Also, debris can become trapped in this space during repair and prevent sealing. So, make sure the seat is not scratched, it can usually be replaced if it is, and make sure no debris is left behind before closing up. Additionally, there is usually a washer made of paper fiber or hard plastic that sits between the valve body and the stem above the threads. If this washer is worn or missing leaking can occur at that point.

Finally, you say you replaced the seats and it got worse. It is possible the seats are not tight or are installed incorrectly, crooked, or cross threaded preventing the washer from seating. Check for that.

Good luck!

Check at a hardware store. They often sell a bag of faucet washers of a mix of sizes that can be used to repair your faucet. You pick out the one from the kit that suits your faucet.

Sometimes the hardware store will have a whole section of individual faucet repair parts. Take the faucet washer and stem seal with you to match them up with new parts.

On the other hand the garden faucets probably are available in only so many styles. You could take a picture of your existing leaky faucet and take it along with you to the hardware store or other big box type store and purchase a new one of the same or very similar style. Then take it apart to redeploy the rubber parts from it for use in your old faucet.

Added Information:

I have actually repaired a faucet that was an outdoor spigot type in a unique way. It's valve stem piece was very corroded and logically led to the conclusion to replace the whole faucet. Unfortunately I found that the faucet was soldered onto a pipe inside the wall behind a stucco exterior and no direct access from the inside of the wall either. I took a sharp focused picture of the faucet and traveled off to the big box store and happened to find a full new faucet that was identical in every way to the old faucet. I was able to re-use the stem, top portion of the faucet body and the packing nut from the new faucet on the old lower portion faucet body and restore to like new performance without having to break any stucco or tear down a blind inside wall.